Bohvey

Okay, I thought "pre-outs" was it but I wanted to be sure before I spent another $600+ on something. Thanks again guys... I edited my previous post but you guys were so quick to answer them. Anyhow, I will be buying a new receiver tonight and it's looking like the NR807 will be the one. Thanks guys.

What's the magic word I'm looking for in a new receiver that will allow me to add an amp to the receiver? The NR807 looks like the nicest 7.2 receiver available. If that one pushes the most watts "per channel" I think I'll order it tonight once I get home from visiting family for the holidays. Once again, great info here. I think I'll look into some 5 channel amps next. If the receiever can handle driving what the amp isn't driving then I'm not too worried about getting a 7 channel amp. The NAD one you posted looked good too so I may pick that one up.

First I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone. So if I'm understanding this correctly I don't NEED a pre-amp. I can get away with just a new receiver and amp? Any thoughts on that Emotiva UMC-1 and UPA-7 combo? I was going to call them and see what kind of deal if any I could swing. If not... it looks like I'll need to buy a new receiver AND amplifier. Is there just a great receiver available that could do both, I'm not married to the Onkyo brand but for the performance, specifications, options and price it's hard to beat Onkyo from what I've seen. I'll definitely check out the options that you guys have been so awesome to offer up. I've always felt like if I'm going to buy something I want to buy it once so I tend to spend the money on the best I can get. Still in this case I don't have $2000 just laying around, $600 I could swing so I may be building more slowly into this. Thanks again everyone. I'll continue to keep you updated. Now to take a look at all those links.

Thanks for that information. I was planning on getting a new receiver once I moved into my new house. The next house is going to have a dedicated HT room. Now it's sounding like I may be better off getting an amp. Can I just add an amp to my existing receiver or do I need a pre-amp too? I was looking at the Emotiva UPA-7 since I will have a 7.1 setup eventually. Is 125 watts per channel sufficient? Is that ACTUALLY pushing 125 watts to each channel? I saw that Emotiva was selling the UMC-1 which looked like a receiver minus the built in amp. With that said if I went Emotiva UMC-1 and UPA-7 would I need a receiver anymore? I was thinking I could start by getting the UPA-7 if that'll provide enough power and then eventually get the UMC-1 in a year or so. What are your thoughts? Any suggestions on what my next big chunk of money should be sunk into This community is awesome. Thanks again for all of the help, advice and feedback.

Alright... so last night I disconnected the speaker wire from the receiver, cut new ends and reconnected them. I went into the Level calibration and set is as follows: Front L/R = -2, Center = 0, Surround L/R = -4, Sub = -4. The center has one more driver than the fronts so it made sense to me that it would need a little more umph to reach the same volume as the towers. Then I went into the EQ settings and put it on manual. I left everything at 0 except I boosted the midrange of the front stage +3 to help with the vocals come through stronger. Then I noticed that the speaker was actually angled down just slightly. I flipped it over and using the provided feet I raised the front end so that it was tilting up slightly. After all of that I watched UP and everything sounded really good. I noticed that I had my volume up louder than I typically would during the movie and during some gaming that night. Usually for a movie my volume is around 30 and I had it at about 36 and for gaming (kids in bed) I put the volume at 12 and I had it around 16. I'll most likely still tweak with it all a bit here and there but I didn't have any trouble hearing the dialogue in the movie. What's a good movie to use to try out the surround sound? Thanks everyone for your help.

The Center Channel is currently under the TV on the TV stand. It is at perfect eye level when sitting on the couch. The TV is mounted on the wall just above it, I'll include a picture. I took this with my phone, not a great pic, sorry... the left and right towers are in the corners of the room ~ 54" from the center of the center channel. The TV is just above, you can see the shadow at the top there. All of the speakers are set to 80hz. They are all connected properly. I'll adjust the sub to 120 LPF of LFE per your suggestions. There isn't a "small" option in the Onkyo settings. You can set them to Full Band or 20, 40, 60, 80, 100... etc. Again, they are all set to 80hz. I peformed the Audessy setup again when I got all of the new speakers. It had my fronts and my center set to Full Band and I changed that to 80hz. The Audessy set the level calibration for my speakers as: Front L/R = -5, Center = -4, Surrounds L/R = -6, Sub = -7. As for the equalizer, it's currently set as "Audessy" and doesn't actually show me what they are set at. I can do manual and just leave all of that as zero as well. I have a lot to play with it sounds like. It's not that the Center Channel doesn't work. There is sound that comes from the center channel. When I do the level calibration everything sounds great, no speaker is louder than the other in the front 3 so I should have a great consistent transfer of sound from Left to Right. Then I put a movie on and I find that the dialogue is still difficult to hear over the action in a movie. I was actually going through the owner's manual last night. I still have the original manual, I'm very OCD about keeping things like that. I plan on disconnecting the wires from the receiver and reconnecting them. I never did that so if it wasn't getting a good connection to begin with that could have been the problem. Awesome feedback, thanks guys.

I know nothing about amps or pre-amps and how to use them in my HT. I'll have to get educated. Is there a book I should pick up to help increase my knowledge base in the HT arena. My plan is to actually build all of this into a dedicated HT room. I can't afford to run out and get anything new right now and I'm happy with the RS-62 rears. I'll get behind the Onkyo tonight and start trying out connections and doing some web searches to see if anyone else has run into anything similar with Onkyo. Thanks for all of the great feedback and helpful advice. I'll keep you all posted on anything I find out.

Like the newb I am I spent probably a solid 30 minutes trying to figure out how to set my speakers to "small" or "large". I finally found somewhere that stated, "Full Band" = "Large" and anything else is "small". So to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, you've got your fronts and center set to Full Band and your rears set at 80hz with your LPF of LFE at 80 as well? I was worried that if my fronts and center were set to full band my receiver wouldn't be able to handle it. I've also read that setting them to "small" is the recommended setup for THX quality sound. I just want to be able to clearly hear dialogue with action. Whatever the setup I'll be satisfied if I never hear someone say, "What did he say?" ever again. That's like a punch to the gut to have these amazing speakers and someone still complaining that they can't hear what someone is saying.

I thought it may be that the Onkyo couldn't power it all. I did check the wires/connections. I even cut new ends on the speaker cables to ensure it wasn't an issue. I would like to add that my speaker cable is only 14 awg which seems small to me but I can't see that being the issue. Should I be looking into getting a seperate amp and a power conditioner? I've noticed a lot of guys have the power conditioners. Not sure where I would put it but I definitely want the best for these amazing speakers. When I ran the Audessey setup with the mic it actually put all the speakers on Full Band. I adjusted them all to 80Hz. I also put the LPF of LFE at 80. Could that have been the wrong move. Thanks for the quick reply.

It's been a good 6 months but I wanted to give an update on my progress. I did get the RC-64. I also got the RF-63's and RS-62's. I am STILL not getting dialogue as clear and crisply as I hoped. Even the dealer that sold me the RC-64 admitted that it was hard to beat that Center Channel and they primarily sold Definitive Technology. I guess in my mind I thought that surely this would solve all of my movie viewing woes where action was drowning out dialogue but no. I still have that same problem. I don't want to turn the center channel up because then during the action sequences if something passes from left to right or vice versa you can really hear the difference. Thanks for all of your comments and advice. Now I've got to figure out how to get these awesome new speakers tuned in so that I get the surround sound experience I'm wanting. I think I'll start a new thread concerning this though.

Thanks Stolenrs, I really appreciate the info. I'll be in Seattle the first week of July so I'll stop in if I haven't found anything yet. I'm currently looking at an RC-35, it's discontinued but the specs look really similar to the RC-62. Any thoughts everyone?

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. I've quickly learned how important the center channel is so I don't mind spending extra money on it. Unfortunately there isn't a Klipsch dealer in my area so I'll have to make a trip to Seattle sometime. Per your suggestions though I will look into the RC-62 and above to give my self more options as I continue to upgrade the rest of the system. Thanks again.

I'm brand new to the forum and still quite new to home audio... I currently have an Onkyo TX-SR607 receiver and the Energy ACT 6 5.1 setup with a PS3, Xbox 360 and DVD player. I've had this for almost 2 years now and I've never been truly pleased with the sound. The center channel right now is nearly impossible for me to hear dialogue and I've increased the level of the center channel to +8 over the other speakers through the setup options in the receiver. So why am I on the Klipsch forum? Well Klipsch has been by far the nicest audio I've heard and I'd like to start switching into a Klipsch home theater. Long story short... what would be a nice center channel that may go well with my current Energy speakers for the time being? I've been leaning toward the RC-52 or something in that price point or less. Thanks in advance.